The site, recorded as far back as 1558 under the name Abbey Green, was once home to the city's gallows, and the earth here has proved to hold one of the more sombre archaeological discoveries in Dublin's recent history.

An initial assessment in 1988 found skeletal remains across the site, both articulated, meaning the bones were still in their original anatomical position, and disarticulated, where they had been disturbed or displaced. Eighteen fully articulated skeletons were recorded in those early excavations, a mix of adult men, women, and children, all buried in an east-west orientation as was conventional in Christian burial practice. Two infant burials near the Green Street side were an exception, laid roughly north-south. A second, more extensive excavation in 1999 considerably expanded what was known: archaeologists uncovered approximately 430 articulated skeletons and around 120 disarticulated sets of remains. Initial examination placed the burials in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, and the current assessment, drawn from the work of Nelis in 2000, suggests a strong association with Newgate Prison, which stood nearby. Those executed at Newgate were not typically afforded formal burial in consecrated ground, and the concentration and character of the remains here is consistent with that grim administrative reality.

The site today occupies the numbered properties from 189 to 194 on the southern side of North King Street, and there is little above ground to suggest what lies beneath. Green Street itself is perhaps best known to Dubliners as the location of Green Street Courthouse, which handled criminal trials and has its own layered history of public justice. Visitors in the area can take in the general streetscape of this part of the Smithfield neighbourhood, but the archaeological significance of the ground is not marked in any conspicuous way. Those with a specific interest in Dublin's post-medieval history would do well to read the relevant excavation reports before arriving, as the site offers nothing visually dramatic, only the knowledge of what the soil here quietly contains.